North End’s newest restaurant centres around southern Indian cuisine, along with a variety of fusion dishes that will appeal to all food lovers.
Jumping from fishing trips at Shubie Park in Dartmouth to opening restaurants in Halifax might not be the pipeline many people expect to take in life, but that is — simply put — the story behind four friends from India. Dinu Mathew, Tinu Matthews, Tony Abraham and Jinu Samuel are the team behind North End Halifax’s newest Indian restaurant, The Kohinoor. Housed in the former HopYard location on Gottingen Street, this new restobar centres around cuisine from southern India but aims to cater to diners from all backgrounds. “There will be something for everyone,” Matthews, who’s a registered nurse and came to Canada in 2012 as an international student, said. “That’s what we have planned. We don’t want to limit it.”
It’s the foursome’s latest venture in the Halifax area, a follow-up to their original restaurant, Spice Hub Indian Kitchen, which they opened in November 2020 in Westphal. It was a project they began, within the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite having “no actual business experience in Canada,” according to Mathew. Back then, the group had goals of testing the local restaurant-scene’s waters outside of the downtown core and filling a gap in the community’s food landscape — as well as funding some of their excursions to catch fish. While they admit they no longer have time to chat away and hold rods casted into lakes, their eyes are now set on bigger fish to fry. Even though the group’s first establishment saw success with a ton of supportive customers, its tiny size and smaller kitchen created limitations. But now with The Kohinoor, the group is ready to dive head first into Halifax’s food scene. “This is still Spice Hub but we just have a different name,” said Mathew, who left India to study culinary management at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. in 2010 until coming to Halifax two years later. His business partner, Matthews, added that customers can discover most of the same dishes from their Westphal-based restaurant on their new menu at The Kohinoor but with even more options.
In Halifax, Mathew said most Indian restaurants focus on cuisine from the northern part of the country, which differs from food — all the way down to certain ingredients — eaten in the south. While the former traditionally eats flatbreads like naan and roti, the south mainly focuses on rice and lentil-based dishes, and often cooks with coconut milk and more spices.
The Kohinoor features a variety of bold curries, flavourful fried rices and biryanis inspired from the southern Indian state of Kerala, but its menu also spotlights dishes people might not find elsewhere in Halifax. That includes Indo-Chinese dishes such as hakka noodles — a Desi version of Chinese chow mein — and cashew chicken with a South Asian twist. Fun options like a popular southern Indian street food called kothu parotta, a shredded flatbread dish mixed with vegetables and meat, as well as both of their ever-popular butter chicken and paneer butter poutines can also be ordered.
On the beverage side, they plan to work with local breweries in Halifax including Good Robot Brewing Company and their North-End neighbour, Propeller Brewing Company. But they also want to add their own flare with Indian-inspired cocktails and beers from their home country, such as the Bangalore-brewed Kingfisher lager. Beyond that, the group wants to see which dishes local clientele enjoy the most and continue to experiment from there.
Beyond seeing a “line out the door” of the restaurant, as Mathew put it, the foursome wants The Kohinoor to be a gathering spot for the community to enjoy. Their ideas for the future include screening sports games like cricket matches and the Super Bowl, as well as hosting local DJs and Indian bands to play lounge music, especially for their later hours on weekends.
But before The Kohinoor even gets to fully stand on its own two feet, the group is already planning their next venture for the city: a grocery store called Spice Hub Indian Grocery set to open in Lower Sackville.
And while it might seem as if they’re quick to jump towards their next project, there’s a special uniqueness to The Kohinoor the group wants to relish — and it’s all in the name. The restaurant is named after the Kohinoor, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world that’s currently set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother within the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.
“That diamond is something that was taken from India to the outside world,” Tinu said, “so this [restaurant] is like bringing Indian food to the outside world to Canada.”
